So this morning I was in the shower listening to sports talk radio, when I heard a commercial for an establishment called, "SportClips". If you have already heard of this place, I apologize to you, because this morning was my first time knowing this existed. It is basically a sports bar, where you can also get your hair cut, your beard trimmed, and maybe even a shampoo. I sat there thinking to myself, "Damn that's a good idea", and I couldn't wait to get online to look this place up on the internets.

It's not like I am terribly unhappy with my current barbershop arrangements, but I do think some changes can be made. My barbers claim to be sports fans, but the only time I saw sports on the TWO flat screens is during the Men's World Cup last year. Other than that, the TVs are off, and there is reggae music blaring through the speakers, whether it is 8am or 7pm. Now, I love reggae music and all, but I love sports more, and what is the point of having TWO flat screens if their only function is to collect dust? I don't get it.

So I looked up this SportClips place, and I noticed that the closest location is in Waldorf, MD, which is about 20-30 minutes away from me. Considering my current barber is a five minute walk from my house, that's just too big of an adjustment for me to make. But what troubled me about this SportClips place, was that I saw NO ONE who looked like me on the ads. I just saw lots and lots of white men, but no brothers, and that was a bit discouraging. I know in a perfect world anyone could cut any one's hair, but the truth is that does not happen. When I was younger, I walked into many a barbershop with no black barbers, and I've heard the "Well I've never really cut a black guy's hair" speech before, and that was cool. Only half of the black barbers in my current shop feel comfortable cutting white people's hair. It isn't racist, it is just about comfort. That's how these things go..

But SportClips is a damn good idea, and there are locations all over this fine country of ours, and their ads are telling me that my kind cannot be accomodated--I dont know if that's true or not, but the ads hint at it strongly. So now, in order to prove myself right or wrong, I have to 1)ask someone who looks like me if they've been there or 2) call SportClips and have that awkward, do-you-cut-black-hair conversation. I think that's a risk worth taking though..

Finally I would like to send a shout out to my kindergarten-bound nephew Nazir, who graduated from pre-school last week. The picture you see below says, "I'm Nazir, I'm a graduate, and I'm important!"